Hosted by Cal Poly's College of Architecture and Environmental Design, the Hearst Lecture Series brings a fresh outlook to the Cal Poly campus this year. New series Director, Assistant Professor of Design, Stephen Phillips of Stephen Phillips Architects (SPARCHS) has coordinated an internationally respected group of leaders in the contemporary fields of history, theory, design, planning, and technology to our school. “We relish our interdisciplinary approach here at the College of Architecture and Environmental Design,” Phillips explains. “Speakers will not only include designers and planners of significant built work. We are also bringing some of the most highly regarded theorists elaborating the history of ideas surrounding the most exciting technological advances to our school.” The year-long series titled “Media and Technology” attempts to focus on voices not reticent to employ advanced media and technology to improve the built environment.
Support for this free public lectures is made possible through a grant from the Hearst Foundation.

Hernan Diaz Alonso of Xefirotarch will speak on his latest digital designs and multi-media exhibitions. Alonso is the principal and founder of Xefirotarch, an award winning design firm in Architecture, Product, and Digital Motion based in Los Angeles. Xefirotarch’s design obsessions are based on an appreciation for the perversity of mutant form, a taste from the movies. Considered one of the most influential voices of his generation he teaches studio design and visual studies at SCI-Arc and Columbia University. He is a visiting professor at Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien.
For additional information please visit: Xefirotarch
Eric Nulman will lecture on his practice and experience as an architect. Nulman is a Lecturer in the Architecture Department at California Polytechnic State University. Mr. Nulman is a registered Architect and a member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), and has worked for several offices including Morphosis, Ateliers Jean Nouvel and Grimshaw Architects. He received his Masters in Architecture from Harvard University and a Bachelor of Architecture from California Polytechnic State University.
For additional information please visit Eric Nulman
Michael A. Berk is a full professor and senior faculty member in the School of Architectureat at Mississippi State University. He was recently awarded the F.L. Crane Endowed Professorship by the provost for his continued excellence in research, teaching, and outreach. He is a registered architect (California & Florida) with an extensive practice as a design partner and project architect prior to his return to the academy. Professor Berk teaches and researches in the areas of: digital media + information design; factory-built housing, and sustainable architecture and planning. He is considered by many to be a leading expert in the area of ecological design — and is often invited nationally to lecture on this topic. (Most recently he was invited to make a presentation at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.)
His current research (with USDA and HUD funding) involves the design and manufacture of an ecologically-minded, low-cost Green Mobile™ home unit for the Southeast and the Delta regions. In December 2006, the Green Mobile™ was awarded $5.8 million dollars by FEMA in the nationally juried Alternative Housing Pilot Program (AHHP) for disaster-relief housing on the Mississippi Gulf Coast; the project was ranked number one by national jurors from the AIA, FEMA, HUD, and other nationally recognized experts. He is working closely with the Mississippi Governor’s Office of Renewal and Recovery and MEMA to execute this award. This project was also awarded FIRST PLACE in the 2007 US EPA + AIA sponsored Life Cycle Building Challenge Competition in the Professional: Unbuilt category.
For more information please visit Michael A. Berk
Dominic Leong (01), Jonathan Lott (02), and Brian Price (03), co-founders and principals of New York City-based PARA, will speak on their various projects, including commercial, institutional, and residential work. Award-winning PARA will be featured in the book "Young Architects 9: Proof," scheduled for release on March 20, 2008 by Princeton Architectural Press.
For additional information please visit PARA or Alumni News
Jill Stoner, professor at the UC Berkeley, will discuss her recent research, which explores architecture as fiction, the derivation of spatial words, and the study of Jewish ghettos in Italy. Stoner has received numerous awards, including the SFAIA award and the ACSA New Faculty Teaching Award.
For additional information please visit Jill Stoner or Amazon.com
Neil Denari, principal of Neil M. Denari Architects (NMDA) and Associate Professor in Residence at UCLArchitecture, will discuss his recent contempoary building projects, which will be featured in the upcoming book "Speculations On." As the former director of SCI-Arc, Denari has been the recipeint of many awards, including the Ralph Recchia Award, the Samuel F.B Morse medal, the National American Institute of Architecture Award, and the Progressive Archtiecture citation.
For additional information please visit Neil Denari, NMDA, Amazon.com
Sylvia Lavin, professor of critical studies in architecture at UCLArchitecture, will discuss contemporary architectural history, theory, and criticism. A former fellow at the Getty Reseach Institute, Lavin is the author of "Quatremere de Quincy and the Invention of Modern Language;" "Form Follows Libido;" and "Crib Sheets."
For additional information please visit Silvia Lavin or Amazon.com
One of Time magazine's "100 Innovators for the Next Century," Greg Lynn will discuss how computers have been used as an architectrue design medium throughout the past decade. Lynn is the principal of FORM design firm in Venice, Calif., a faculty membrer at UCLA, and the author of numerous books, including "Animate Form" and "Architectural Laboratories."
For additional information please visit Greg Lynn, FORM, Amazon.com
Mark Mack is a faculty member at UCLA and principal of the award-winning design firm Mack Architects. He will speak about his recent work, which includes museum and institutional buildings in the States, various complexes in the Middle East, and housing projects in Austria and Korea.
For additional information please visit Mark Mack, Mack Architects, Amazon.com

Ron Witte will speak on his latest award winning designs and competition entries with his partner Sarah Whiting of WW. WW has recently received commissions for public work including the Museum of Art + Design for San Jose State University; renovations for the Drama Division of the Juilliard School at Lincoln Center, New York; and an Arts and Athletics Building for St. Francis High School in Louisville, Kentucky. In addition, they were finalists in the Toronto Central Waterfront and the San Diego Harbor competitions, and the Museum of Modern Art's PS 1 Competition, in New York. WW’s work centers on the idea that a building's program and form are inextricably tethered to one another and that architecture's progressive potential lies in the speculations, refinements, and definitions that invigorate the program/form relationship. Ron Witte is a Cal Poly graduate and faculty member of Princeton University School of Architecture.
For more information please log onto: www.wwarchitecture.com
Ron Witte will be offering an advanced design workshop for our upper-division students based on his design studios at Princeton University School of Architecture. For more information and if interested to attend, please contact Assistant Professor Stephen Phillips at sjphilli@calpoly.edu as space is limited.
Sites and sights, destinations and determinations, architecture is still bound by the lines that demarcate the world into us and them, or here and there. What is the architecture beyond icons? The lecture will deal with formative influences, laboratory experiments and recent work.
Prior to co-founding LAB architecture studio with Peter Davidson, Donald Bates taught at the Architectural Association in London, as well as founding the LoPSiA independent school of architecture in Paris.
Donald presently leads an active and noteworthy role in numerous architectural university and conference lectures and competition juries around the globe. his valued participation has placed him as head of jury for both middle eastern and asia pacific awards and design proposal competitions, and as a visiting critic and lecturer at schools of architecture across north america, europe,middle east, asia and australia. Donald is currently an esteemed visiting professor at the Cooper Union in New York.
LAB's competitions and current projects are recognised for, and characterised by, their distinctive use of contemporary geometries and patterning, integrated with industrialised fabrication and construction techniques to achieve unique, constructible solutions. LAB architecture studio operates a non-corporate architectural practice, engaged in teaching, pedagogic initiatives, exhibitions, publications, as well as the formulation of original, challenging contemporary building projects. Importantly, it is our task as architects to provide the spatial imagination necessary for constructing a new sensibility, as well as for designing innovative and viable buildings.
For more information please log onto: LAB Architecture
Keith Rivera of Acme Architecture will lecture on his expertise in the areas of housing, urban infill and mixed use design. Rivera is principal of Acme Architecture known for their environmentally responsible use of technology and strategies such as energy efficiency, renewable/recycled materials and resource management. Acme works exclusively in a digital, 3-D, Building Information Model (BIM) format that allows for rapid visualization and testing of design alternatives. Acme recently received an honor award for their Portland Courtyard housing Competition.
For more information please log onto: acmearchitecture.com
Marc J Neveu a historian and theorist will lecture on his own approach to architectural education. He will discuss "Project Runway," the Boyer Report, Socrates, and possibly a bit of architectural pornography.
Marc is currently a Lecturer at Cal Poly. He worked at Kallmann, McKinnell, & Wood Architects in Boston and completed his PhD at McGill University. His dissertation, entitled Architectural Lessons of Carlo Lodoli (1690-1764) focuses on the origins of architectural education in the Veneto during the eighteenth century. Neveu was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship for study in Venice and a Collection Research Grant at the Canadian Centre for Architecture. He has taught at the Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston and at the University of Manitoba.
For more information please log onto Marc Neveu

Wes Jones will lecture on his technology inspired designs for completed buildings and theoretical projects since the inception of his firm in 1993 with the design staff of his former firm Holt Hinshaw Pfau Jones. The California-based firm Jones, Partners: Architecture has received critical acclaim for engaging contemporary culture with sophisticated design detail. Their work has received eight Progressive Architecture Design Awards, which include recognition for the Astronauts’ Memorial at Kennedy Space Center and the $180M South Campus Chiller Plant for UCLA. For more information visit www.jonespartners.com
Professor Kipnis is a professor of Architectural Design and Theory at the Knowlton School of Architecture of The Ohio State University, and founding former Director of the Graduate Design Program at the Architectural Association of London will give a lecture titled "Discrimination" on current trends in architecture technology and design. Kipnis is one of the most prolific critics and writers on contemporary architecture, which includes articles on Rem Koolhaas, Ben van Berkel, Mark Robbins, Bruce Mau, The World Trade Center, Raphael Moneo and Greg Lynn. His writings on art and architecture have appeared in such publications as Log, Hunch, Harvard Design Magazine,Quaderns, 2G, El Croquis, Art Forum, Assemblage, and his books include Choral Works: The Eisenman-Derrida collaboration, Perfect Acts of Architecture, and The Glass House. His most recent study of Stephen Holl’s Bloch Addition to the Nelson Atkins Museum appears in his new book, Stone and Feather. As architecture/design curator for the Wexner Center for the Arts, he organized the design survey, "Mood River" with co-curator Annetta Massie, and "Suite Fantastique," a compilation of four exhibitions: Perfect Acts of Architecture, The Furniture of Scott Burton, The Predator – a collaboration between Greg Lynn and Fabian Marcaccio, and Imaginary Forces – Motion Graphics. Kipnis has taught at Harvard, Cooper Union, and Columbia Universities, and has been a Getty Visiting Scholar and Chicago Institute of Architecture Fellow.
Professor Nezar AlSayyad is a professor of Architecture, City Planning, Urban Design and Urban History at the University of California, Berkeley will speak on his most recent books Cinematic Urbanism, Making Cairo Medieval, and The End of Tradition in a lecture titled, "Consuming Heritage or the End of Tradition." Professor AlSayyad is Associate Dean for International Programs in the College of Environmental Design; Chair of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies; Director of the International Association for the Study of Traditional Environments (IASTE); and editor of Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review (TDSR). As a scholar, he has authored and edited several books on housing, identity, tradition urbanism, urban design, urban history, urban informality, tourism and virtuality. He has also produced and directed two public television video documentaries: "Virtual Cairo" and "At Home with Mother Earth." Among his numerous grants are those received from the U.S. Department of Education, NEA Design Arts Program, Getty Grant Program, and the Graham Foundation.
Paffard Keatinge-Clay is the architect of the landmark addition to San Francisco Art Institute's historic campus will present his lecture, "Evolution and the Prototype." Former Cal Poly instructor, Paffard Keatinge-Clay’s work resonates with a unique synthesis of the late designs of his former employers and associates Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Mies van der Rohe. Keatinge-Clay’s work fosters an investigation into the social, political, and artistic trends impacting architecture created during the heart of the activist movements of the 1960s. Although marginalized during the 1960s and 1970s his work has most recently been honored in the form of a book Paffard Keatinge-Clay, Modern Architect(ure)/Modern Master(s), and a traveling exhibition that originated at SCI-Arc.
Larissa Sand will lecture on her work as principal of Sand Studios with industrial designer Jeff Sand. Immediately following her lecture, she will participate on the jury for the 4th annual Vellum/CAED furniture competition. Sand directs the multi-disciplinary design firm spanning architecture, furniture, interiors, industrial design and architectural products. Larissa comes from a background in fine art, art history and architecture. With hands on experience in metal fabrication and close work with specialty trades Sand Studios has a fluid relationship between design process, building and production. Sand Studios has designed detailed projects such as restaurants, architectural facades, residential and commercial architecture, interiors, furniture and lighting, and product design such as cycles, ceramics and snowboard bindings. They have received distinguished recognition from the AIA, I.D. Magazine, ADEX Platinum Award, ICFF Best Body of Work Award and the Good Design Award. Their work resides in the permanent collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design.
Ralph Roesling is a principal in Roesling Nakamura + Terada Architects in San Diego. He also teaches part time in the Architecture Department at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. He has won numerous AIA awards, including four AIA awards this year alone. His work is published domestically as well as in France and Italy, including the Roesling Nakamura Monograph by L' ARCAEDIZIONI. In addition, the work has been shown in DOMUS, Progressive Architecture, l' Arca, Sunset and Cree Magazines.
Ralph Roesling was turned on to art early on (particularly painting and drawing), taking after his mother. He went on to be a studio art major his first year of college, but this felt empty to him because it did not satisfy his engineering side. He then moved on to sculpting, but this still didn't suit him. One day while pondering his future, Ralph wandered into the architecture department and saw models of environments – this was the turning point for him. He comes from a strong building background. His Swiss grandfather built the Lake Rampart walls in Luzern outside the Santiago Calatrava train station and Jean Nouvel KKL cultural center. He believes that art and architecture are one in the same with a different emphasis, so it was an easy transition for him. Ralph loves coming into the office and being around creative people, engaging in dialogues about projects. His favorite part is working together with a design team to interpret our client's dreams into a reality of architecture. Their happiness and inspiration is the ultimate satisfaction to him. When Ralph is not at work, he enjoys going to car museums and car shows, all the while dreaming of designing his own.
Pritzker Architecture Prize winner Thom Mayne of Morphosis has sent two of his top design and technology associates, Pavel Getov and Marty Doscher to lecture at Cal Poly on the firm’s latest design work. They will be providing extensive insight into the innovative technological practices of their award-winning firm.